Pilare
Alternate Names
No. of Players
Two
Equipment
A 6x6 square grid, 10 each of white and red counters, and 36 neutral black counters are required for play.
History
Pilare was designed by Basque game author Jorge Gómez Arrausi.
Objective
The objecive is to leave the opponent without any legal moves.
Play
Mechanics
Starting from the white player, each player picks up any whole stack of men with his color on top (a single man is considered to be a stack too).
After picking up the stack, the player places its bottom man on a square that is horizontally or vertically adjacent to the source square. If the square is not empty then the new man is placed on top of the square's stack. Then the player takes the next man from the bottom of the stack and places it on a square that is horizontally or vertically adjacent to the previous square. The player continues distributing the stack, until all its checkers are placed on the board. After placing each checker the player can change direction but it is forbidden to make a 180 degrees turn.
Here's a 'before and after' example that should be self explanatory:
Strategy
Variations
This game may also be played on an 8 x 8 board with 14 counters per player and 64 neutral counters.
Sources